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5/27/2009
Check out the new UMC “Rethink Church” video. It’s a fantastic production, very slick, professionally done.
There is just one thing missing: God. There is no mention of God, no reference to Jesus, in three minutes and twenty seconds. Since “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” has not worked, one would think that perhaps a message that more clearly owned our Christian identity might be in order.
But that’s just me… a theological dinosaur…. 4/15/2009
The recent American Religious Identification Survey found that the number of people who self-identify as Christian in the U.S. has dropped by 11% in the last eighteen years. As Christians, we might look at this in a couple of different ways. We could go with a kind of Stanley Hauerwas approach: cultural Christianity in the West (Constantinianism) is taking its last breaths, and we’re simply seeing the results of that. People don’t go to church anymore because of cultural expectations. If they go to church, it tends to be because they are looking for some kind of spiritual community and fulfillment. Therefore, while we have fewer people who call themselves Christian, those who will tend to be more wholly committed to the faith.
On the other hand, we should be cognizant of the downsides here: we’re not doing a good job of introducing people to the faith and growing them up in the faith once they are inside the church doors. Speaking simply of my own tradition, more people in the U.S. identify themselves with no religious tradition at all than with United Methodism. If the mission of The United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world (which it is), then we’re not successfully fulfilling this mission in the U.S.
My wife is from England, and since we’ve been married I have become cognizant of the collapse of Christianity in that country. The cathedrals still exist, and the Anglican church still exerts some influence politically, but a very small percentage of the population actually has any meaningful commitment to the Christian faith. Don’t think that the same thing can’t happen here.
If you want to read about this survey, you can find a concise article on it here. 4/2/2009
My first theology teacher in seminary was Ellen T. Charry, and did she ever set a high bar. I still remember her as one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. Her lectures were dynamic, faithful, intellectually challenging, and formational. When she left for Princeton Theological Seminary, it was a real loss for Perkins.
It’s been quite a few years, but I finally have the opportunity to hear my former teacher lecture again. She will be at United for the J. Arthur Heck Lectures, April 14th and 15. Her topic is “God and the Art of Happiness.” If you can find some way to come for these lectures, I strongly recommend doing so. 3/17/2009
There’s a very interesting article in Time on a recent argument by Israeli scholar Rachel Elior. She claims that the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls were not Essenes, as most scholars hold, but rather a disaffected priestly group. In fact, she says, there were no Essenes. They never existed. It seems that they were a literary fiction spread primarily through the writings of Josephus. Philo and Pliny the Elder, who also mentioned the Essenes, simply borrowed from other sources.
Personally, I’m not convinced. Philo is writing pretty early. He’s roughly contemporary with Paul. Pliny the Elder is also mid-first century. Where did the legend of the Essenes come from? It couldn’t have been from Josephus, since Philo writes before Josephus. And it’s a little hard to believe that Josephus, Pliny, and Philo, who produced some of the most impressive literature of the first century, were all wrong about the existence of the same Israelite sect.
Nevertheless, this should be an interesting debate. It’s not uncommon for the scholarly consensus on important issues to change from time to time. As I often tell my students, history is never neat, and history is never simple. 3/6/2009
I’m currently at the annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society. The famous evangelical Bible scholar I. Howard Marshall spoke this morning on the state of New Testament Christology. His talk was very informative. It takes a senior scholar in the field to pull off these kinds of broad overviews. There’s just too much information out there on any particular sub-discipline of biblical studies. This is in part why scholars tend to function in silos—the sheer volume of literature that one has to become familiar with in mastering a particular sub-discipline can be staggering. It makes those scholars who have command over a broad spectrum of their disciplines seem all the more impressive. 2/5/2009
I received my copy of the Wesley Study Bible in the mail a few days ago. I think it’s going to be a very helpful resource for people in the pan-Methodist traditions. I did, however, receive an interesting comment about study Bibles some time ago:
Hello, Professor Watson,
I have pre-ordered my copy, but as I did so, I hustled my members of local Lutheran church (Our Saviour's Atonement, Washington Heights) to pre-order Augsberg Fortress's new Lutheran Study Bible.
I like having "our" Wesleyan bible, but how many study bibles can we justify? The Oxford and the HarperCollins appear more academic, but what about The New Interpreter's Study Bible...also published by Abingdon (I think).
Then there is a Discipleship Study Bible, which Will Wilamon also says is a pretty good thing.
Yikes!!!
I trust that you folks did a good job, but life was simpler 30 years ago, and the current crop of study bibles look to have more and more and more notes.
Is there a reasonable end-point?
Peace,
John Welch
Points well taken. How does one know which study Bible to buy? What justifies the need for more and more study Bibles? Is there a point at which we can say, “That’s it. We don’t need another study Bible”? I don’t really know the answers to these questions, but I will make just a few comments:
Because of the diversity of our denominations, tradition-specific notes can provide information of particular interest to readers. So, a Lutheran would probably be especially interested in Luther’s comments upon particular passages of scripture, and Methodists will probably find it edifying to consider Wesley’s insights. It could also be helpful to gain insights from traditions other than our own, and tradition-specific writings can help in this regard as well.
Volumes like the HarperCollins Study Bible, the Oxford Annotated Bible, and the New Interpreters’ Study Bible serve different purposes. Their notes are not tradition-specific, but provide historical and cultural information, as well as cross references to related passages of scripture. This is the kind of Bible that I assign for exegesis courses because the purpose of exegesis is not to glean tradition-specific insights, but to interpret the text on its own terms, to the extent that this is possible.
Not all readers of the Bible, however, are reading for sermon preparation or writing exegesis papers. Most are reading for devotional purposes. One thing that I like about the WSB is that it can be a helpful resource for devotional reading, but there is an academic component to it as well. In other words, it can facilitate the “knowledge and vital piety” that are part of the Wesleyan understanding of the Christian life. 1/27/2009
I just received my copy of Perspective, the alumni/ae magazine of Perkins School of Theology, where I learned that Kathleen Baskin-Ball, Pastor of Suncreek United Methodist Church in Dallas, had died of cancer. She had been battling the disease for years. Rev. Baskin-Ball was 50 years old and had a four year old son for whom she and her husband had long hoped and prayed. She was widely held to be one of the most gifted pastors in the North Texas Annual Conference. You can read more about her remarkable minsitry here.
I didn’t know Kathleen very well. I had only met her a few times. One of the ways in which I interacted with her, however, was in the ordination process. While many pastors who participate in the interviewing side of the ordination process treat candidates with respect and kindness, there are those whose behavior is less than gracious. Kathleen, however, was one of the most gracious and humane people that I have encountered in this process. The way in which we treat people over whom we have authority, or to whom we don’t have to be nice, says a lot about our character.
I feel very badly for Kathleen’s family, but I am also saddened because the UMC has lost one of its best. We need strong, compassionate leaders, and she was one. Pray her family, and pray for God to raise up new, Spirit-filled leaders. People like Kathleen Baskin-Ball are hard to replace. 1/20/2009
I’ve been reading through Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius for the last week and made it through book five. Apollonius of Tyana is an important figure for NT scholars because in some ways his actions are similar to those of Jesus. He teaches, lives an austere life, heals people from time to time, and performs the occasional exorcism. There are other similarities, as well, and these have been well documented. Of course, the similarities should not be exaggerated. After all, Apollonius is the very embodiment of Greek philosophical ideals. Jesus stands firmly within first-century Palestinian Judaism. Whereas Apollonius wants to teach people to life a life of such Greek virtues as prudence, justice, temperance, and courage, Jesus wanted to teach people about the kingdom of God and seems to have put forward certain ideals that would have been abhorrent to the Greek mind. It seems likely that the Apollonius traditions were collected to create a kind of counter-savior to Jesus in the early third century as Christianity was becoming more commonplace in Asia Minor.
If you have an interest in ancient history or ancient Christianity, I suggest spending some time with this enlightening text. 1/8/2009
Has it really been almost a month since I’ve blogged? Ok: I’m hereby making one of my resolutions for 2009 to blog at least once a week. We’ll see how that goes….
I had a bit of good news today. It looks like Fortress Press is going to publish my book: Honor Among Christians: A Reassessment of the Messianic Secret. Fortress is a very fine publisher and they have put out several books in one of my areas of interest, social-scientific criticism of the New Testament. I published with them in the New Proclamation series, and I feel fortunate to be working them again.
I’m supposed to have this wrapped up by December of this year. That will be a lot of work, but it’s a manageable deadline. 12/9/2008
I spent most of last summer working on a project for Fortress Press. I had been invited to write in the For New Proclamation Commentary for 2009 (Year B), commentary on the lectionary passages in the coming year. I was one of four contributors to this volume, which has just been published.
In the lectionary, the readings for each week are taken from different parts of the Bible. There are two OT readings, one of which is a psalm. There are also two NT readings, one of which is from the Gospels. The major advantage of this kind of commentary, then, is that information about the diverse readings for each week is brought together in one place. Further, by dealing with the material for each week as a whole, the commentator can deal with thematic elements linking the passages together.
Wondering what to get your preacher for Christmas? O.K., maybe you’re not. If you are, however, this would be a very handy addition to your pastor’s collection of resources. |
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